Dementia Researcher Blogs

Hannah Hussain narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. In this blog Hannah Hussain provides a whistle stop tour through some psychometric concepts. In a previous blog she discussed health outcomes – as her PhD is focused on how to use health-related quality of life data collected during dementia trials and studies. As part of her PhD, Hannah has reviewed specific psychometric properties...

Dr Aida Suárez-Gonzalez narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. There are many ways in which you can use your research and your knowledge to advocate. Aida encourages everyone to get better at public engagement. With your advocacy, you can contribute to fight discrimination and join a global movement to protect the human rights of people with dementia . Find the original text, and narra...

Dr Gaia Brezzo narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Work smarter not harder – I am sure you have heard this phrase before. And if you work in academia, like Gaia, I am sure you probably shrugged it off, most likely thinking I need to work smarter AND harder. But do we really? And where does this working ethos come from? In this blog Gaia talks about the 4-day working week movement th...

Dr Timothy Daly narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. In this blog, Tim encourages early-career researchers (ECRs) in dementia research to build on their existing journal clubs or independent reading efforts to take the step towards publishing letters as part of their intellectual and professional development. Find the original text, and narration here on our website. https://www.deme...

Dr Connor Richardson narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. Thinking about applying for a fellowship can be daunting and often feels like the next big pressure you face after finishing your PhD. Connor knows this as well as anyone, and he put-off deciding for 3 years. However, last year (after feeling the career drift mentioned in his last blog) he committed himself to go for it and ha...

Dr Anna Volkmer , narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Small research grants play an important role in supporting early-stage research (and early stage researchers), encouraging innovation, and advancing scientific knowledge. They provide flexibility and agility to pursue ideas that may be considered too risky or too exploratory for larger grants, and we all know what can grow from a...

Dr Sam Moxon , narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. Did you know that the academic publication industry is more profitable than the music and film industry? We’re talking tens of billions of dollars. It’ s not a surprise when you consider that U.K. universities are estimated to spend hundreds of millions each year on publication fees. And that’s per university… So where does the mone...

Dr Kamar Ameen-Ali narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Immunohistochemistry is both an experimental and diagnostic technique which is frequently used in research and clinical pathology laboratories. In this blog Kamar provides an introduction to immunohistochemistry and describes how it is used to diagnose neurodegenerative diseases post-mortem, with examples of how it has been used...

Dr Clarissa Giebel narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Today, 8th of March, it’s International Women’s Day – Dr Clarissa Giebel takes the opportunity to highlight the many things fantastic women have achieved, taking stock where we are at in terms of gender equity (or still mostly inequity), and recognising what we still need to achieve. As a scientist, in an originally male-dominat...

Beth Eyre  narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. The final year of a PhD is scary for many reasons. All of your hard work is coming to an end, you have to write a very long book and there can be lots of uncertainty about what’s next. For Beth, the ‘what’s next’ was always scary. So many thoughts would constantly run around her head, such as how and when willshe find a job? What if she...

Adam Smith narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. If you're new to research, at some point you will need to publish your work. In this blog Adam Smith talks about how to avoid predatory publishers and provides tips on how to choose the right journal to publish in. Not sure what predatory publishing is? Well Predatory or deceptive publishing are terms describing publishers or entities t...

Dr Yvonne Couch , narrates her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. Even for Yvonne this one is going to be slightly obscure (her words), full of unnecessary references to books you’ve probably never even heard of and highly opinionated. Today Yvonne talks about reputation in science. Whether it’s possible to build one and how that might affect your career (PS Dementia Researcher coul...

Hannah Hussain narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Vitamins and supplements are not pharmacological interventions and are not typically provided by the NHS. But this does not mean that they do not have benefits for the user. Hannah Hussain is a PhD Student studying health economics and dementia, however... she is also a fully qualified and jobbing pharmacist. In this blog she talks...

Anna Marie Rosická narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. The past 18 months have been adventurous for Anna Marie. From moving to a different country on her own, through the infamous “I-have-no-idea-what-I-am–doing” phase, to gradually becoming settled in her new researcher life with all its perks and peculiarities. Yes, you read that right – it has been something over a year since she...

Dr Sam Moxon , narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. Sam started a new job this month. A new job that meant he left a place he had been at for 6 years, moved to a new city and ventured out into a totally new workplace. It’s quite a lot of change all at once but but did a great job of navigating it. With the challenge of short-term contracts, its easy to become desensitised to moving h...

Dr Gaia Brezzo narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Good researchers evaluate data from every angle. They explore cause and effect and untangle the tricky web that interconnects everyday phenomena. So it is easy to understand why Gaia has found it difficult to decide where she stands when it comes to the decision around if she should or shouldn't participate in the industrial action...

Dr Connor Richardson narrates his blog written for Dementia Researcher. Career drift can happen when you proceed on your professional career course with no plan, or when a career strategy goes awry due to conditions beyond your control (like a pandemic.... or in academia... a lack of funding maybe?). It is easy to become reactive and stop being proactive career moves, taking the next job because i...

Dr Anna Volkmer , narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Success in academia if often measured in papers. And the best papers seem to be those with about a million authors on them. Writing anything down on paper seems daunting enough without having to share it with a bunch of others who are going to give their judgement (using the edit and comment function on word – which makes everyth...

Dr Clarissa Giebel narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. You will have come across the term PPIE, or Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement. It is a given that we involve people affected by a condition, so for us, dementia, in our research design and development, conduct, and dissemination. And that is not restricted to dementia of course. PPIE needs to be embedded in any healt...

Dr Aida Suárez-Gonzalez narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Aida has just been awarded UCL Global Engagement Funds (GEF) for a project to co-produce positive narratives about dementia. The GEF are an exciting seed funding scheme for all sorts of global engagement ideas. In Aida's project, she plans to partne with collaborators at Princeton University and the University of South Caro...

Dr Kamar Ameen-Ali narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Kam was recently asked to peer review a grant by a major UK research funder. This was not something she had been asked to do before, and it made her realise the sheer number of tasks required of us in academia that we simply get zero training or guidance on. In this blog, Kamar pulls together her experience of grant peer reviewi...

Beth Eyre  narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Not only is this the year I will Beth be finishing her PhD training, but this was also the year she had a go at writing her first ever fellowship application. Writing your first applicatoin can be a hard slog (which is probably why so many people take a gap year between PhD and Fellowship and explore a ready-made postdoc position). Beth...

Dr Yvonne Couch , narrates her blog written for the Dementia Researcher website. Yvonne has recently been doing a lot of procrastinating, and not a lot of grant writing. In fact as she writes this, she should be either in the lab or writing a grant and yet she is not! Instead she is writing and narrating this blog. When talking to a friend about the challenge, they replied that they thought procra...

Dr Clarissa Giebel narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. It’s only taken 2.5 years for Clarissa to finally go out to Australia as part of her Wellcome Trust funding. There was a time when she thought it would never happen, but it finally became possible to connect in real life with some researchers she has worked with remotely on routine data in dementia care, and to meet a great numb...

Dr Kamar Ameen-Ali narrates her blog written for Dementia Researcher. Recent years have seen various mentoring schemes pop up in academia both within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), and through organisations and charities. This has, in part, been in response to a changing landscape over the last decade or so, which has seen an increase in precarious contract-based employment for early career...